Saturday, 14 July 2012

Dying without dignity or choice

On Friday, (at about the time the island workforce was going
home so nobody would be paying attention) the Manx government's Department of (ill) Health
announced that their dodgy survey on ‘End of Life Care’ is done and dusted.

The title of the press release (‘Dignity and choice at the heart of Island’s
first ever End of Life Care Framework’) is an outright lie. The plan offers
neither to any dying person with more than a few functioning brain cells and
the desire to actually choose, rather than be told, how to die. The opening
sentence, in which it is claimed that the framework comes “after 18 months of a
detailed research and analysis into end of life care elsewhere, as well as a
review of the care available in the Isle of Man”, is also untrue. Even the
briefest glance at the 38 page document reveals that SO did not happen..

Turning to what is laughingly described as a ‘care plan’
itself (see http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/health/news/endoflifecareframeworkandimple.pdf
), as soon as I saw the quote from Cicely Saunders (the superstitious airhead behind
the ’Hospice Movement’) I started to suspect how poorly this ‘survey’ was done.
Any government publication which includes – anywhere - material from someone lauded
by those notorious religious apologists the Templeton Foundation deserves to be
treated with utter, utter contempt. Beside Saunders, other winners of the
Templeton Prize include religious marketer and all round bigot Billy Graham and
Mother Teresa, that notorious economic parasite on the poor and dying. I think
you catch my drift.

But, being a proper researcher, I did try to set gut
instincts aside, so then looked at what documents were quoted in the appendices.
Sadly, the narrow, one-sided and utterly inadequate selection of ‘research
material’ further confirmed my suspicions.

Then I checked the names on the ‘steering group’, only to
find far too many names I’ve learnt to associate with an ability to swallow whole
religious, pseudo-moralistic twaddle (and at least two who I know never take a
moral decision without consulting a priest) or to bury anything resembling
evidence that the government policy they are paid to produce might just be
flawed.

The ‘plan’ runs to 38 pages, but I could summarize it in four
sentences.

“We’re superstitious and so are most of our tunnel-visioned
friends. We don’t listen to anyone else – especially if they have academic or
professional experience which contradicts our childish beliefs. Dying? Not our
problem, once we’ve milked you for all we can you’re on your own.”

About Me

Stuart Hartill is a libertarian and lives on the Isle of Man, so must either choose to be amicably contrarian or get lobotomised and join the herd. An anonymous tax exile there was once quoted by an English journalist to the effect that Manx society is little more than 55,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock.
The population is now nearer 80,000, and everyday life is increasingly dominated by an obnoxious mix of fundamentalist Christians and anal-retentive tax exiles who are no longer welcome anywhere else.
The blogger is none of the above, which makes his life there interesting on even the dullest day and positively hilarious on others.